Flu outbreaks tied to weather forecasting in new model

A new system ties together weather forecasting with flu outbreak predictions, giving healthcare providers a better way to prepare.

Columbia University and National Center for Atmospheric Research scientists teamed up to create a forecasting model that they say can predict the peak of a flu outbreak seven weeks before it strikes. They based their prediction model around how wintertime flu epidemics tend to follow extremely dry weather.

It is possible that future flu forecasts would be included in local weather reports, leading listeners to “develop an intuition of what we should do to protect ourselves in response to different forecast outcomes,” says report author Jeffrey Shaman, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. For healthcare providers, that could trigger the stocking of extra vaccines or reinforcing hand hygiene protocols.

More than 300 healthcare workers have complained to the Health and Human Services Department about employers infringing on their religious or conscience rights, a monthly total that increased nearly tenfold.